
Millions Like Us
Women's Lives in the Second World War
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy Now for £16.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
About this listen
The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Virginia Nicholson's Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War. A special multi-voice recording featuring five actresses that bring to life the hundreds of personal testimonies, diary entries and books that make up this superb study. Read by Patience Tomlinson, Annie Aldington, Rachel Bavidge, Julie Maisey and Georgina Sutton.
In 1942 Cora Johnston is grieving over the death of her young husband, torpedoed in the Atlantic; Aileen Morris is intercepting Luftwaffe communications during the siege of Malta - and Clara Milburn, whose son was captured after Dunkirk, is waiting, and waiting ...
We tend to see the Second World War as a man's war, featuring Spitfire crews and brave deeds on the Normandy beaches. But in conditions of "Total War" millions of women - in the Services and on the Home Front - demonstrated that they were cleverer, more broad-minded and altogether more complex than anyone had ever guessed.
In Millions Like Us Virginia Nicholson tells the story of the women's war, through a host of individual women's experiences. She tells how they loved, suffered, laughed, grieved and dared; how they re-made their world in peacetime. And how they would never be the same again ...
©2011 Virginia Nicholson (P)2012 Penguin AudioCritic reviews
"Passionate, fascinating, profoundly sympathetic." (Artemis Cooper, Evening Standard)
"A deeply moving account of female courage both at home and overseas during the six brutal years of war...the joy of Virginia Nicholson's book is the way she has plaited scores of individual stories into a richly textured account of the many forms that female courage can take. This story belongs to us all." (Kathryn Hughes, The Mail On Sunday)
"An acclaimed account of this period... a rich seam of social history." (Cassandra Jardine, Daily Telegraph)
Interesting and very well narrated
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Amazing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An excellent narrative by an excellent writer.
What an amazing generation and how lucky we were to walk amongst them. We must appreciate the dwindling few while we still have them
Tremendous history of women of all walks of life in WW2
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Brilliant WWII Social History
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating social history marred by over emphatic narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
moved..to. different experiences all-over thr country and how people coped
the history
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
True accounts
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One small comment would be that it would have been ok to have had a male actor to voice Churchill! - you wouldnt have broken the spirit of the book!
Women who kept the wheels turning..........
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A sweeping account of British women's lives (across the world) through world war 2 and into the new world left after VE Day, the stories included take in women from all classes and how the war panned out for them, including some famous faces. Women at home, in factories, on the land and in the services are all here.
The book does not romanticise the war and the horror and hardship of that time is not minimised, but it is balanced with the humour, domestic banality, loves and triumphs of the women of Britain.
This is a strangely fortifying listen - the stories of resilience and coping (or not) are very applicable to the events of the past year and have put things in perspective. I wish I had listened during the 1st wave of the pandemic.
I wish this had been my lockdown listen
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
My nan was in the army in anti-aircraft and she used to tell us about it as a child. After she died, I wish I had listened more carefully!, this book fills in a lot of the gaps and answers a lot of the questions I would ask her now as an adult. It makes you feel like you were there, down to mundane things like the weather and lack of nylons. My Granny was a housewife, I didn't realise what they went through having thought they were not particularly active in the war, how wrong could I have been!
The story teller is good and keeps you interested in a very (perhaps slightly over-long) narrative. The voices of the women are sometimes a tad ridiculous, overdone and fake accents, but this made me smile actually and does not detract at all, hence high rating.
Great late night listening and thoroughly enjoyed.
Interesting book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.